Cold Nights, Long Roads, and Stories That Stay With You

I used to be an avid reader. I loved reading and the escapism it provided. And let’s be honest—before movies or games, reading was the de facto way to see new worlds or experience tales spun by master storytellers.

In graduate school, I spent what felt like every waking moment reading. Six years later, I still struggled to read. My wife, Flora, suggested audiobooks more than once, but I always just shrugged it off.

The only “books” I’ve really been able to engage with over the past few years have been TTRPG sourcebooks, and even then, it’s often been a struggle to sit down and devote time solely to them.

I work in healthcare, and almost daily I’m reminded of life’s frailty. We’re all going to die, unfortunately, and the clock is ticking. So we’ve got to get as much from life as we can. How you spend it is up to you—and honestly, there’s no right or wrong way to do that.

If something makes you happy and isn’t harmful to yourself or others, do it. Enjoy it. Make the most of it.

For me, the easiest and quickest outlet has been games. I can’t quite describe the calm that settles over me—even though some games (like ARC Raiders) really get my heart rate going. But I love it.

Still, life changes have allowed me to throttle back a bit. The problem with gaming—or any hobby, really—is that you can get too caught up in it. Yes, even reading. Sometimes you’re just doing too much of something.

Over the past month or so, I feel like I’m finally slowing down enough to stop and smell the roses. So when a coworker recently suggested checking out the audiobooks for the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, I felt that internal wall go up.

But why not just try?

I commute daily, and depending on traffic, the drive can be anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour. So I went searching for the audiobook of Dungeon Crawler Carl on Spotify. And like so many things in my life, I hit a detour.

I saw The Gunslinger—Stephen King’s 1982 entry into The Dark Tower series. I immediately hit “play” and was transported back to Mid-World. I can’t describe the joy I felt. The story is very adult-oriented, but it’s also so richly textured. I fell in love all over again.

I am so glad to “read” these books again. I hungrily consumed them in college alongside my good friends, and to this day we still quote them. My gaming moniker, “Sai Tyrus,” even comes from those books, if you kennit.

These books were meant to be re-read. I know King made some revisions, but he was exploring the multiverse long before it was fashionable, tying all his works together. The things he plants in the very first book—once you’ve read the original seven—are genuinely astonishing.

I read these books twenty years ago, so it’s fun to return and remember some things while being hazy on others. I recognize the broad strokes of how everything ties together, but it also feels like rediscovering the story for the first time.

This has woken something in me, and I’m grateful for it.

Just the other day, I stumbled upon Théoden’s speech from Return of the King:

But at that same moment there was a flash, as if lightning had sprung from the earth beneath the City. For a searing second it stood dazzling far off in black and white, its topmost tower like a glittering needle: and then as the darkness closed again there came rolling over the fields a great boom.

At that sound, the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect. Tall and proud, he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups, he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before:

"Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!"

With that he seized a great horn from Guthláf his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straightway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains.

"Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!"

Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them. Éomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first éored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Théoden could not be overtaken.

Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed.

For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and the darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

Absolutely beautiful. It makes me want to revisit those stories too—and I think I will. But right now, the Tower calls in the world of literature.

With the cold weather, we had our first snow in Virginia last week. This weekend, my wife and I are due to revisit John Carpenter’s The Thing. One of my good friends has a tradition of watching it with the first snowfall. Our snow has already melted, but it’s time.

It’s gloriously FUBAR and utterly unique. We love it—though it’s certainly nightmare fuel and lingers long after the credits roll.

But isn’t that true of any good story? They stay with you.

Anyhoo, that’s the rant, folks.

Stay frosty.